Macgasm

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In this episode, Grant talks about ad-blocking software.

[03.5 MB] [0:08:50] [Hosted by: Josh Schnell & Grant Brunner] [Subscribe]

For all of you waiting anxiously to see Steve Jobs up on stage (I missed you Steve!) the wait is over: today’s keynote is now online. You can watch it here or download the podcast from Apple Keynotes on iTunes.

(Hopefully I’ll be able to finish downloading it before you all start watching it so I can get decent speeds…)

By the way Steve, thanks for making me crave another iPod Nano I don’t need/can’t afford to buy even if it comes with a “free” video camera! Why don’t I just give you my credit card?

Today at the Apple iPod event we were introduced to a new version of iTunes. iTunes 9 delivers a new fresh look to some icons, a new store layout and a few new features including an app organizer for your iPhone! I have put together a walk through screencast to show off all these new features. Enjoy!

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It came and went pretty quickly. But like every other Apple event, a lot of people were left scratching their heads, wondering just how important a lot of news will be for Apple’s future.

Probably the biggest surprise of the day came when Steve Jobs walked out on stage and played moderator for the event. It was pretty unexpected for many, despite rumours that he would be present at the event. I have to admit, it was nice seeing him up there again. We love the Schiller as much as the next guy, but it’s just not the same without Jobs being all dramatic up there.

Outside of that, there wasn’t really many surprises. It’s looking more and more like Apple’s having a hard time plugging all of its leaky holes, some of which appear to be pretty big.

We got an iPhone and Touch OS update. We’re now standing at 3.1, and a lot of the features that were listed on the release highlight some new functionality additions for the iTunes update. Of course, the update was as cryptic as always, and we suspect that it also addresses a number of bugs in the 3.0 release.

The first major announcement of the day came pretty early. iTunes 9 got a major overhaul. It makes sense once everyone realized that it was the only native application that remained non-cocoa when Apple released Snow Leopard.

New Stuff in iTunes 9

iTunes LP

There’s been some speculation that Apple has been attempting to create a new file format that will let them add album information to files, and if that’s the case, this is pretty much the first step. They’ve taken the album experience of old and made it new again. One of the biggest memories from my teenage years was exploring album artwork on my father’s vinyl collection, and to get that back again is pretty great. We’ll now get access to liner notes, lyrics, performance videos, and photos. It’s like having the Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame in your pocket.

Home Sharing

Previously, we were able to move files from one library to another, and then authenticate with Apple if we planned on listening to the files on the second machine. They’ve streamlined the process, and we now have the ability to sync our stuff, and import files in a much simpler manner.

iTunes Extras

Just like the iTunes LP stuff, we’re getting more information for our video purchases through iTunes. It looks like Apple’s thinking about taking on Blu-ray directly now, and they’ve started with adding all the DVD extras to your digital files. Think of a fully functional DVD, but digital. It’s pretty enticing to most.

Genius Mixes

I’m not a big Genius fan, but a lot of people swear by them, and this feature is the next logical extension of that. You can create up to 12 mixes and have them sync with your iPhone or iPod.

Improved Syncing

They completely revamped the way you sync your media with your mobile device. They’ve given us a nice GUI to rearrange our AppStore purchases, and a completely new framework for all the other media that we’re trying to toss onto our devices. It’s a logical next step.

New iPod Touch

The iPod Touch got a price point update, and some new hardware. The 8GB model is now $199; 32 GB is $299; 64GB is $399.  A nice little slide for the storage bump.  All things considered, not much has changed. The Touch didn’t even get a camera! It’s also been given a 50% speed increase, and they’re really starting to market these as “pocket computers”, so it could be a sign of things to come. *Ahem* Tablet *Ahem*

Shuffles and Classic get an update

Shuffles have been price dropped to $50.00, but ultimately remain the same.  The only exception here is the Special Edition model that’s 4gb in Space and polished chrome–for 99 bones.  They must be going for the business crowd here.

Nanos get Cameras

The biggest news of the day is that the Nano line is getting video cameras.  They’ll be bundled with some effects (Thermal, Mirror, X Ray, Motion Blue, Sepia, and Cyborg), and be a one click upload away from YouTube.  They also now have Nike Plus built in as well as an FM turner. I’m pretty stoked about this. Might just have to go pick one up!

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In this episode, Grant and Josh talk about all of the announcements from today’s Stevenote.

[09.4 MB] [0:23:50] [Hosted by: Josh Schnell & Grant Brunner] [Subscribe]

I’ve been running Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Server for just over a week now and I have definitely found a few items that are not functioning properly. Some of these may affect Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Client as well. Additionally, I have some hints and notes for Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Server users.

With any software upgrade, there are definitely some applications that will break. Most developers will be able to fix the bugs quickly and release new versions just after, or in some cases before, the release of a new operating system. I’ll list some of the problematic applications and their fixes, if available.

• Growl. Growl is probably the thing I’m missing the most right now. I use it for GrowlTunes and GrowlMail mostly. There is a beta version available, however it is doesn’t work quite right 100% of the time. You can give the beta a try here. Growl is currently at 1.2 Beta 2.
• Server Admin for any server below 10.5.8. If you try and connect to a Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard Server running anything below 10.5.8 you will get an error that says it has to be 10.5.8 or higher. The screenshot below shows the exact error message.

• The third item I’ve run across is that 10.6 Snow Leopard doesn’t seem to notice Windows-based clients or at least doesn’t put them in the left sidebar of the Finder windows. I know 10.5 Leopard Server does this right out of the box since I have that installed in a VM.
• When I reset my Snow Leopard Server install, which loads much faster than Leopard, the brightness is completely back to full blast, despite having been all the way down just prior to reboot. Yes, this is a bug and not the end of the world, just seems like something that would be easy to fix and would have been tested. I guess I must be the odd person out, I’ve heard from more than one person that they run their monitors at full brightness.

Overall, despite the bugs that are present, Apple’s Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Server is well worth the $499 cost for unlimited clients. It is particularly worthwhile if you have a bunch of Mac OS X clients and want a central way to manage them. There have been some rumblings in the Mac community that the $30 client upgrade is hardly worthwhile and does not do anything. This is definitely not the case with 10.6 Snow Leopard Server. The overall improvements more than justify the cost.

Put Things Off is a handy little iPhone app from a gentleman by the name of Nick Cernis. It is a mix between a To Do list/Task Manager and a procrastination device. You have the ability to input your tasks and if you don’t date them, you sort them by what you want to do today, or what you can afford to put off. This could be bad for someone like me, I procrastinate quite a bit. That being said though, I found this to be a todo app that I was actually using. Maybe it is because it is fun to say “Nah, I can do that some other time,” but I was planning my days with this. That never occurs with me. I asked Nick in one of our emails if he had any plans of integrating with Google Tasks. He said that it wasn’t anything that was planned due to support issues with a 3rd party. Which is understandable. Though I think we will be seeing quite a bit more out of Nick in the future and hopefully the near future.  For more on Put Things Off, Watch the Screencast below.

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There’s been a number of applications that let you get color information from websites or the desktop for quite some time now. Heck, even OS X ships with a color picker. I’ve got a new favourite, so I thought I’d pass it along.

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